After the oom-killing, please see if you can free up the ZONE_NORMAL memory
via a few `echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches' commands. See if you can
work out what happened to the missing couple-of-hundred MB from
ZONE_NORMAL.

Running with PREEMPT OFF lets me copy the file!! The machine LAGS
occasionally every 5-30-60 seconds or so VERY BADLY, talking 5-10 seconds
of lag, but hey, it does not crash!! I will boot the older kernel with
preempt on and see if I can get you that information you requested.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to recompile the new kernel with preempt on
and get the info from there.
It is usually best to be working with the most recent kernels. We can
always backport any important fixes if we need to.
Thanks,
Nick
--
SUSE Labs, Novell Inc.